128825: Ruling on saying: ‘Seeing you restores my soul’

What is the ruling on saying that something ‘restores my soul,’ as it is said when drinking water or when seeing a friend whom one has not seen for a long time, and one says to him: ‘Seeing you restores my soul’. What is the ruling on that?.

Praise be to Allaah.

These phrases that are commonly spoken by people are not
meant literally, that the soul left the body and then came back to it, or
that seeing a certain person restores the soul to one who is dead. Rather
what is meant is feeling ease and happiness after pain and hardship, so that
after that that person is like one who has been brought back to life. The
soul does not leave the body except in the case of death, although there
remains a kind of connection to it, and the soul leaves the body partially
in the case of sleep.

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: The soul
has five kinds of connection to the body:

1.
Its connection to it in the
mother's womb as a foetus.

2.
Its connection to it after
emerging into this world.

3.
Its connection to it when
asleep; it is connected to it in one sense and separate from it in another.

4.
Its connection to it in
al-Barzakh when although it has departed from it, it is not completely
separate from it in the sense that it has no connection to it at all. We
have quoted some hadeeths and reports which indicate that the soul returns
to the body when greetings are conveyed to it, and this return is something
special which does not imply that the body is brought back to life before
the Day of Resurrection.

5.
Its connection to it on the Day
the bodies are resurrected, and this is the most complete type of its
connection to the body, because it is a type of connection in which the body
with never die, sleep or decay.

The soul of the sleeper is in his body and he is alive,
although it is different from his life when he is awake; sleep is akin to
death. Similarly, when the soul of the dead person is returned to his body,
he is in a state between life and death, like the sleeper who is in a state
between life and death. Thinking about this will clear up a great deal of
confusion for you. End quote from Kitaab al-Rooh, p. 44

To sum up: there is nothing wrong with a person saying ‘my
soul is restored to me’ and so on, if it is expressing an acceptable meaning
such as relief, joy and happiness after hardship, pain and difficulty.